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Published: October 18th 2007
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Luggage...Again?
I guess we just love luggin´the stuff! Wake up Little Guses! Bright and early for us. Actually, not so bright. Had to be up again before sunrise to catch our train to Savona/Genova up on the northwestern corner of Italy’s coast.
Yes, we stopped at the McCafe AGAIN this morning. But in our defense, it was the ONLY place open on a Sunday morning (ahem, and we’re addicted). This is the quietest the city ever seems to be. Sunday is truly respected as a day of rest and few shops are open, especially at 7:00 am. It can be a little inconvenient, but it’s nice to know that the workaholic attitude hasn’t completely taken over. Italians take their time off very seriously.
It took us about 4 hours to get from Florence to Savona - whew! We are becoming quite the patient travelers. We did get to pass through Cinque Terre on our way and made mental notes that we should take a day trip up here when we get back into town. After a short taxi ride, we arrived at the cruise ship terminal. It’s pretty great to have a vacation WITHIN a vacation!
And a quick note on the cab driver…he had a
television ON the dashboard! Now, we’ve noted many times about the insanity of the driving techniques here in Italy and adding a television set to the mix didn’t seem like such a great idea. Like, shouldn’t he be watching THE ROAD!?!?! I wasn’t completely nervous - thinking “Oh, he must not watch it WHILE he’s driving” - until he started flipping the channels - WHAT?!?!? It was crazy - but we arrived unscathed. And I thought I could multi-task!
Ah, when we arrived at the Savona train station we saw this hilarious sign. Now, thankfully it is marked to say what the image means. This is good because our interpretations were as follows: 1) no amputees allowed or 2) do not walk into the pee-pee river. We thought this was pretty funny! Just goes to show you that a picture can truly be worth a thousand words - you just need to be careful what words people use.
We worked our way through the cruise line baggage check, check-in, security, the passport guy and we were finally on board! Our ship name is the Costa Fortuna. A beautiful ship built in 2003 for the Costa Cruise Line family.
It is really, really nice! Since we are big-pimpin’ and have our own suite, we promptly headed out to the balcony for some pics of our view and of our new digs. Since we had a few hours to kill before we departed, we gallivanted all over the ship checking it out.
It is pretty funny being an American on an Italian cruise line, we are in the minority for sure. We are in such a minority (95 out of 3500 guests) and in such a mix that ALL cruise announcements, bulletins, and documents are translated and repeated in a minimum of FIVE, yes, FIVE languages! And since we had a few Chinese and Japanese on this cruise, we got to hear everything in SEVEN languages! Yipes!
In the evening after we bid adieu to Savona we had our emergency evacuation training. We donned our life vests and assembled by the lifeboats to hear our long-winded instructions…in SEVEN languages. It was madness. French, Portuguese, Italian, English, Cantonese, Japanese, and German versions of every instruction. By the time it was over I was crouched on the floor trying to get comfy and forget the fact that it had been
4 hours since we had eaten (a marathon for me). Time for dinner for sure!
We decided to dine in the dining room for dinner (is that too many dine words in one sentence?) on our first night on the ship. We wondered who we would be sitting with. And I wonder who pairs up the thousands of diners. Thankfully, it seems their first category is Country of Origin - so at least you are guaranteed to speak the same language. The rest of the selection process must go something like dorm room assignments in college. “Hmmmm….this couple likes heavy metal music and THIS couple likes classical…looks like a match made in heaven!” Seriously, that is how it must go. But luckily for us we were matched up with some very nice Americans on board. There was one couple from Denver who were very nice and with whom we clicked with immediately. We enjoyed our 2-hour, 6 course meal with some good conversation and some laughs.
After dinner Jen had to change - she was not smart enough to wear maternity pants to dinner. Duh! Anyway, we walked around the ship a bit more and ended up hanging
out in a nice lounge listening to some live jazz music.
And on that note, it was buona notte time…tomorrow, Napoli!
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Amy Z
non-member comment
Yeah for elastic!
Wear the maternity pants to dinner. This is the only time that pants with that much elastic won't get you nominated for "What not to Wear". The cruise sounds fantastic, but there is something not fair about you going on a vacation from your vacation.